From the Holy, Joyful News according to John
So he comes to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the lands which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s spring was there, so Jesus being tired from his journey sat thus at the spring. It was about midday.
A woman of Samaria comes to draw water.
Jesus says to her,
“Give me a drink!”
For his disciples had gone away into the town so as to buy provisions.
So the Samaritan woman says to him,
“How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, being a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no communication with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered and said to her,
“If you knew God’s gift and who it is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’ you’d have asked him and he’d have given you living water!”
The woman says to him,
“You’ve nothing to draw with and the well is deep, from where then have you got the living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself, and his sons and his cattle?”
Jesus answered and said to her,
“Everyone drinking of this water will be thirsty again but whoever drinks of the water which I give him will definitely not be thirsty ever again! But the water which I give him will become in him a spring of water bubbling up into everlasting life!”
The woman says to him,
“Sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty nor come here to draw!”
Jesus says to her,
“Go, call your husband and come here!”
The woman answered and said,
“I haven’t got a husband!”
Jesus says to her,
“You say well ‘I haven’t got a husband!’ You’ve had five husbands, and the one you’ve got now isn’t your husband! This you said truly!”
The woman says to him,
“Sir, I see that you’re a prophet! Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that the place where one ought to worship is in Jerusalem!”
Jesus says to her,
“Woman, believe me that an hour is coming when you’ll worship the Father neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You’re worshipping what you don’t know. We’re worshipping what we know, for Salvation is from the Jews. But there is coming an hour, and it’s now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is looking for such ones worshipping him. God is a Spirit, and those worshipping him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The woman says to him,
“I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he comes he’ll tell us all things!”
Jesus says to her,
“I am he, the one speaking to you!”
And on this his disciples came and were amazed that he was speaking with a woman; however no one said ‘What are you looking for?’ or ‘What are you talking to her about?’
Then the woman left her water pot and went off into the town and says to the people,
“Come, see a man who’s told me everything I’ve ever done! Perhaps this is the Christ!”
So they went out of the town and came to him.
But in the meantime the disciples were asking him, saying,
“Rabbi, eat!”
But he said to them,
“I’ve got food to eat which you don’t know about!”
So the disciples said to one another,
“Did anyone bring him anything to eat?”
Jesus says to them,
“My food is that I should do the will of him who sent me and that I should finish his work. Aren’t you saying ‘There are still four months and the harvest is coming’? Look, I tell you! Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they’re white for harvest already! And the one reaping receives a reward, and gathers fruit to everlasting life, so that the one sowing and the one reaping may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true, that one sows and another reaps. I’ve sent you to reap that on which you haven’t laboured; others have laboured and you’ve entered into their toil.”
And from that town many of the Samaritans believed in him, because of the word of the woman testifying, ‘He’s told me everything I’ve ever done!’
So when the Samaritans came to him they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. And they said to the woman,
“We believe no longer because of your report, for we’ve heard for ourselves and we know that this truly is the Saviour of the world, the Christ!”
This translation,
from the Greek Text used for the ‘Authorized’ or ‘King James’Version
Copyright © David Lawrie 1998
This passage “Living Water” may be freely copied and distributed, provided that this Copyright notice and permission is included, and that there is no alteration either of this notice or of the text of the passage itself.
